They meet for coffee.

Dan gets there early and he's sitting in Starbucks of all the absurd places, but that was where Blair agreed to meet him, and after two weeks of her refusing to take his phone calls or answer his texts, Dan will take what he can get. He's sitting at a table when she walks in and he has a moment before she sees him. Dan takes full advantage, taking in her hair, her face, the small furrow between her eyes as she looks for him, the way she's biting her lip. Then her eyes find his and he smiles at her, a short, tentative greeting and he's rewarded with a big smile back. Dan feels some of the tension he's been holding slip away.

Blair gets her order then comes over to the table. Dan stands when she approaches then leans in to hug her, their arms going around each other awkwardly. It was as if they are strangers, not like they'd been fucking in a Paris apartment not long ago. Dan kisses Blair on the cheek, lightly, leaving barely and imprint. He likes the feel of her cheek against his lips. He sits back down on the bench then scoots over in surprise when Blair slides in next to him, her thigh pressing along the length of his. Dan takes in a shuddering breath as all the wanting and needing he'd felt in Paris comes crashing in. Blair looks at him sideways and her fingers curl around the white paper cup and she smiles again, but this time it's tentative, even a little shy. Dan feels his heart beating in his chest.

"So," Blair says.

"So," Dan echoes her, awkwardly, pushing down his desire. There is too much between them and the least of it is the way she lights up his skin and makes him feel like he wants to crawl out of it.

He fidgets with the half-eaten pastry that's sitting on a napkin that's splotched with oil and crumbs. He mentions the weather, noting that fall is truly coming and the leaves are turning. Blair says she loves fall. He asks if she's seen any movies lately. She tells him she has a lot on her mind these days. There's pain in her eyes as she talks and he wants so badly to reach out and touch her, smooth her hair, try to take it away.

Finally Blair takes the plunge, inhaling a deep breath as she brings up one of the one million things they're busy talking around instead of talking about.

"How's Serena?"

Dan has been alone for the last month, living without his family, but also alone with no one to talk to. Serena barely speaks to him, answering his questions with short, clipped sentences, always seeming like she just wants the conversation to be over. Rufus had been upfront with Dan and told him that he didn't understand how he could do this to his family and even though his dad had told him he stood by him always, Dan knew he couldn't count on his support right now. Jenny was in Milan working on a grant, which is why Dan had been able to go back to the old loft, but she was also busy and with the time change, he couldn't pour his heart out to her.

Now Blair was asking him how things were and it was a painful kind of release when he realized that he could actually tell her. Dan sags a little at her words and he finally reaches out to take her hand. Blair startles a little at his touch then her hand relaxes in his.

"It's awful, Blair. So awful. She's so hurt," as he speaks Dan can picture Serena's eyes, filled with accusation and pain, the way she looks at him with hatred now, "I never, I didn't know, I just…"

He never meant to hurt her. Dan can't say the words because they're so deeply inadequate and they don't recognize that at any moment in all of this Dan could have made a different choice. Surely fucking another woman would hurt his wife, and Dan wasn't the type if person to do something like that casually, and he had known from the moment that he turned and saw Blair Waldorf standing in the street, soaking wet, saying his name, that everything he'd known to be true was actually a lie. He's not sure if he'd expected things could end up differently than they have. It still didn't mean that the woman he'd spent the last fifteen years with, the woman he'd built a life with and made a family wasn't facing the greatest betrayal of her life because of him. None of it felt right but all of it felt inevitable.

"I know," Blair says softly, her thumb gently stroking the top of his hand, back and forth, and Dan focuses on her touch and how it keeps him anchored as he floats in a sea of misery. "I hate this too. All of it."

If only they'd made a different choice years ago.

"Chuck?" Dan asks. Blair laughs, a wry little sound, almost an 'aha'.

"Surprisingly good," she says, "now that we're telling the truth and we're not busy trying to control each other, he's actually not a bad person to partner with. We have Henry to take care of, although since Chuck is back in Dubai, I don't think we'll see each other until around Christmas."

"And Henry?" Dan asks. Blair smiles and this time it reaches her eyes.

"Looking forward to Paris," she tells him. "We leave in six months. Part of Chuck's terms. I have to stick around and play my part for just a little longer."

"Maybe someday he and the twins can meet," Dan muses, taking a drink of his now warm coffee, allowing himself to briefly think of tomorrow, or the next month, or the next year, of a house full of kids and laughter, him, Blair and for a second he feels happy about what the future might hold. He glances over at Blair and Blair gives him a sad, tired look.

"Oh Dan," she sighs, "I don't think so."

That's the moment Dan knows this is not a reunion. This is a goodbye.

Blair is looking at him, searching her face, her eyes starting to shine with tears that haven't reached her cheeks quite yet. They look at each other in silence, and if this is goodbye, if this is over before it's even started, Dan knows what has to happen next. He knows what he needs. The mood between them shifts abruptly and Blair is moving closer to him, pressing into him, her hand squeezing his, and Dan shudders.

"Oh, god," he says under his breath.

"You're staying at the loft?" Blair's voice is heavy, barely a whisper. He nods and wonders if he'll be able to make it to the loft based on the heat growing in the pit of his stomach, in his groin. He wants her. He wants her now.

"Yes,"

"Take me there," Blair says softly, like saying the words hurts. Dan nods.

They stand up, both of them moving slowly as if in a daze, throwing away the half-eaten pastry and half-drunk coffee, Blair gripping his hand, wrapping herself around his waist, head buried in his shoulder and Dan doesn't want to lose that connection, can't stop touching her, brushing her hip, twining his fingers with hers, an arm around her shoulder. They stay like that while he hails a cab, only breaking apart to crawl into the back seat and immediately their hands find each other.

He can't stop looking at her as they sit in the back of the cab on the way to the loft, memorizing her face, imprinting it inti his memory. It's the kind of intense gaze that would normally make someone turn away but Blair returns it, her eyes never leaving his, and they sit like that, hands joined, in silence.

Blair smiles when he opens the door to the loft and murmurs something about how familiar everything feels, and Dan isn't listening because the minute they step through the doorway he's smoothing back her hair and and bending to kiss her neck, and Blair doesn't spend any more time with her memories because she's gasping at the touch of his lips. He makes his way down the column of her neck and pushes aside her blouse to place a kiss just above the line of her clavicle.

This isn't Paris. It's not fast or dirty or illicit. Dan doesn't really know what it is. In a way it's coming home, his fingers remembering things about about Blair's body, slipping under the hem of her blouse, tracing across her ribs, tracing a path of futility, kissing all those secret spots, the inside of her elbow, each knuckle on her hand. It's saying goodbye without words. And the worst part is that none of it matters.

Blair watches him as she leans her weight against the door of the loft, her eyelids heavy, her lips parted wantonly, her breathing hitching with every touch of his lips.

"Dan," she whispers. "Please."

In another situation he might have teased her, feigned ignorance, pretended he didn't know what she was asking, made her playfully beg for his next touch or next kiss. She might have laughed at him, pretending to push him away. There is nothing playful about what she is asking. Her tone is edged with desperation.

"Yes," Dan hisses as he starts to unbutton her blouse, slowly, his eyes watching as it falls away and she's wearing an entirely typical Blair Waldorf piece of lingerie; black, lacy, expensive. He stops for a moment when he finishes with the last button and stares at her, then he unclips the front clasp and her breasts are exposed, nipples hard, her skin flushed.

"Beautiful." Dan says, not realizing he's spoken out loud. Under other circumstances he might have been embarrassed at accidentally revealing what's running through his head but right now he doesn't care.

"Yes," Blair agrees and she is looking at him, taking in his face. Dan wants to blush but instead he reaches out and starts to touch her breasts with his hands, grazing her nipples with his thumbs and Blair gasps.

"You're mine," Dan whispers. It's a lie. He knows that if Blair is indeed his, it's only for tonight and the morning is going to bring a harsh reality. He says it anyway because he wants it to be true.

"And you are mine," Blair answers, leaning forward, pressing herself along his length, her arms going around his neck, her face tilting up towards his and finally, finally their lips meet and that's when everything breaks loose. Dan is kissing her and kissing her and kissing her some more, hard and wet and desperate, and he realizes that part of the wetness is not just their hot, sloppy mouths with tongues tangling but the tears that are on both their cheeks.

He would finish it there, push up her skirt and slam into her, hard and fast, but this isn't going to be one of those nights. No matter how tight and wound up he feels, this, Blair, requires pacing and patience, and he's not 18 anymore and he can make it last. Somehow they end up in his old bed, tangled, pressed against each other, their clothing on the floor and when the time is right Blair flips him over, straddles him and swiftly takes him inside her and she rides him, striking a fast, desperate rhythm and when he comes, bucking his hips, screwing up his face, letting out a massive groan of pleasure that comes from his very core, her eyes never leave his. Moments later she comes as well and she collapses on his chest, their skin sticky and sweaty and the whole room has the delightful stink of sex.

"I love you," Blair gasps as Dan strokes her hair and thinks that he's not sure if he's ever seen anything to fucked up. Blair is crying again and pulls out of her and he rolls over, in one swift motion, cradling her in his arms, kissing the tears that are rolling down her cheeks, wanting none of this to be real.

"Will you go back to her?" Blair asks as she sniffs a little.

"Serena?" Dan asks, a little surprised at the question. "No. She's not an option anymore. She wasn't the moment I saw you in Paris."

"Even for the kids?" Blair asks and Dan's heart clenches at her question and the magnitude of what he's done hits him once again. His kids have a broken home, not because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants but because he let the one person he'd ever truly love go fifteen years ago. He wonders if he'll ever stop paying for that mistake.

"She wouldn't have me, even for the kids." Dan says, gazing at a picture on the wall but not really seeing it, "some cuts are too deep, and I can't live a lie, even for them."

Blair looks at him, studying him, and her fingers are tracing patterns across his chest. Evening sun is blaring through the loft's western facing windows, lighting her hair, making it seem redder than usual.

"That's kind of selfish," Blair says. Dan winces at her bluntness. He doesn't like to hear it but he also knows she's right.

"I guess so," he says. "I don't know if any of this has an easy answer."

"No," Blair says, placing a kiss on his shoulder, "Neither do I."

They have the rest of the evening and all night. Dan orders pizza. Blair grabs one of his old shirts and sits on the couch cross-legged while they debate the merits of seventies film noir and it feels a little like the old Dan and Blair. Dan finds a decent bottle of wine Jenny had left and they drink enough to almost forget what will happen in the morning. They fuck. On the couch. In the bed. Fast and hard. Slow and sweet. They memorize each other because it's going to be all they have after tonight. They sleep a little, collapsed in each others arms, sated and heavy with post-sex exhaustion. They enjoy waking up together.

"You'll have to go in the morning?" Dan asks as the darkness starts to turn grey with the morning light. Blair nods then buries her head into his chest as if looking at him hurts.

"I gave Chuck six months. I promised him I wouldn't carry on with you during that time, to make things look right. Plus, we just can't. We can't…."

Dan knows she's right as much as he wants things to be different. There is nothing left for them but goodbye.

"Well then, I think we need to continue our marathon of sex," Dan says, his voice strained even as he tries to make it light. "I'm going to need this to get through."

Blair gazes at him, her face serious.

"Me too," she says.

Dan wakes up to an empty bed and the late morning sun. He stretches a little, feeling all his muscles and the ache that comes from a night if great sex. He reaches for Blair and finds that the space next to him is empty. He could get up and look for her in the bathroom or pretend she's making breakfast in the kitchen but Dan knows he'd be lying to himself in order to delay the inevitable. Blair has slipped out quietly, not waking him.

He finds a note on the table next to the bed and recognizes the paper from the pad Jenny keeps by the phone. On it, in Blair's sloppy scrawl is one sentence.

I'll love you forever.

Dan holds the note in his hand and turns on his side, curling as if he can protect himself from the pain that washed over him. The sheets smell like sex and Blair and if he closed his eyes he can pretend for a littke while longer that she's still there. He knew this was coming but that doesn't make the hurt that grips him any less bearable. For the first time but not the last he wishes that Blair loving him and him loving Blair could be enough while at the same time knowing it never can be. And he knows that no matter what the future brings, nothing will change the fact that Dan will love her forever too.

~fin~

Author note: I'm not entirely convinced this story is done, but this is where this part ends for now. And writing this killed me. Thank you as always for reading. Dair forever.